When one door closes...

When we moved to a small town in rural New Mexico last spring, I knew I was taking a chance that I might never find a job that would allow me to use my experience and education. But, we loved the lifestyle and the country and we were really burned out on the big city (Houston). After 20 years of working at a major research university, I was ready to try something else--something that made me feel like I was making a difference some how. So when the opportunity came up for my husband to transfer to southern New Mexico, I just said go for it...I'll find something to do with my career when we get there.

Boy, am I glad I did that. I would never in a million years have thought of museum education as a career. But here I am planning education programs around some of my lifelong passions. My interests outside of work and family are gardening--organically and using ecologically sound, sustainable methods--fiber arts, especially knitting and crochet and anything else that lets me play with gorgeous yarn; and historical crafts, patterns and gardening methods. So what am I doing right now at work, you may ask?? Well, I am planning a big event for spinners, weavers and other yarnies (in April-happy birthday to me), a rendezvous that includes traditional crafts that were part of the mountain man era--spinning, weaving, quilting, basket making, corn husk dolls (and I'm still researching it--it will be in mid-July), and I've been discussing a collaboration with Julia Price of Sierra Dove to establish community gardens in the area, with the museum garden having a focus on traditional methods used in the southwest. I am going to work every day and researching my hobbies and planning events with people who love the things I love.

Could it get any better than that? Whoop!!

So tell me--have you thought about what interests and passions you could turn into a career?

Not your Grandma's quilts

As a would be fiber artist, I think I sometimes forget that you can take the oldest techniques and methods and give them a completely new twist. This guy has done just that with solar system inspired quilts--jimmy mcbride.

My cubeecraft boys

This is the cubeecraft.com version of my boys, Inkmo and Jackmo. Those nicknames have evolved into alter egos that my son often uses in his cartoons. If you check out the Cubeecraft website, there are lots of other cool things to do with cubeecraft.

Novel ways to recycle bottles

This article from the Daily Green has some very novel ideas for recycling plastic and glass bottles. In particular, check the video at the very end--made by folks who obviously have too much time on their hands.

Charities for crafters

Busy hands are happy hands, so I have been looking for charity projects that would allow me to use my crafting skills for a worthy cause. Here are three that were recently highlighted in my Yarnmarket Knitting News e-newsletter:

Project Linus--make blankets of all kinds for babies and children that are hospitalized

The Snuggles Project--snuggly blankets for animal shelters

Socks for Soldiers--hand knitted socks for soldiers

These came from the Lion Brand web site:

Knots of Love: knitted and crocheted caps for cancer patients going through chemotherapy

Any many, many more in the Lion Brand newsletter

More DIY wedding goodies

Well, I am up to my eyebrows right now in wedding things. It is amazing how much time and work goes into even the simple home ceremony that we are having. We are having cheesecake (gluten free) instead of a traditional wedding cake because we love it and half my family has to eat gluten free. I found a couple of recipes that freeze well and will bake those ahead of time. I am making a simple A-line dress, but adding a crocheted shrug from the summer issue of Interweave Crochet (with slight modifications--different yarn) and fingerless wedding gloves from Crochetnmore. I am also working on a design for a beaded and crocheted hair froo-froo--I'll post more on that later.

We found a wonderful service here--a wedding officiate and ordained minister who is also a professional photographer. Layne Holland, at Ruidoso Wedding, has a great idea--helping people have simple, memorable weddings that don't cost an arm and a leg. Our ceremony will include a sand unity ceremony and Layne had some wonderful suggestions on how to include our family and friends in the ceremony as participants rather than as just onlookers. The albums he had put together for other couples were just beautiful and he had some stunning pictures of happy couples with majestic mountain scenery in the background. If you are looking for a destination wedding in the mountains or unique intimate ceremony, I highly recommend Layne.

Here are more DIY wedding goodies:

DIY Wedding Decor Roundup from Threadbangers

Do It Yourself Weddings

DIY Network Wedding Planning Tips

DIY Bride-Crafty Wedding Goodies

Collecting inspiration--making a "glue book"

This is an idea I came across on the Think Crafts Blog--a glue book. I am always coming across ideas in magazines that I like--decorating, landscaping, hair styles, doggie couture, whatever. Often times, it is not something I want to reproduce exactly, but it inspires some kind of design idea or an idea for a gift for a particular person, an organizing problem that needed a unique fix, a quote that would be great for starting a lesson, planning a special event, ideas for writing an article--that kind of thing. At one time I tried tearing out pages and saving them in an idea file, but that stacked up way too much paper way to fast and I usually never went back to it. A glue book would be an easy way to keep ideas, pictures, poems, quotes--anything you come across that you don't want to send out to the recycling bin, but really don't have a place to store. Plus, when you just need a quiet moment to recharge your batteries, you can get a cuppa your favorite beverage, kick your feet up, and thumb through all your favorite and very personal inspirations in one little book. What a great idea!

Crafting for hoarders

I am a hoarder--something my mate does not understand. Maybe its because my grandparents were products of the Great Depression and I spent summers with my grandmother growing up. She never threw anything away that had any life at all left in it. It kills me to toss anything that might have a use somewhere down the road. I never leave old furniture on the curb--I rebuild or repurpose it and occasionally, donate it. I have fabric hoards that are almost as old as my grown kids. I don't hoard to the extent of having 300 cats and newspapers piled on every surface of my house--I recycle the newspapers and magazines (or make beads) and I'm allergic to cats. But if something might have another life as some kind of craft project, I stash it away. Thankfully, I am also something of an organizer, so the hoards don't get too far out of hand and stay in my craft room, for the most part.

This week I have found several good articles written by fellow hoarders. This is a great article from Crafting a Green World on revamping old furniture. I love these articles on ten uses for old bottle caps and wine corks. I can't stand to throw either away.

T-shirts are something else I have trouble tossing, but the average t-shirt makes me look like a badly stuffed sausage casing and the length is usually totally wrong. This article from Craft Magazine gave me some great ideas for revamping old t-shirts and adding to my yarn stash. The one lesson I learned from this is that cutting a t-shirt into a yarn strip with scissors is tiring and makes your hands hurt. I don't have a rotary cutter, but will probably buy one before I do this again. I have several t-shirts left over from my son's mountain bike racing days which I plan to make into a quilt and I can turn the left overs into yarn. I've also made other projects out of t-shirts and have the book, Generation T, which I love. Many of the designs are kind of punk, but it is chock full of ideas (108 to be exact) for repurposing and redesigning t-shirts. I saw the author, Megan Nicolay, and her sisters make a wedding dress out of 6 white cotton t-shirts on DIY's Uncommon Threads (one of my favorite shows) and it turned out really nice. Definitely worth a try, but probably more appropriate for someone who is young and thin.

Having Thrifty Fun

I found a new website that looks promising. It has ideas and forums for sharing ways to live more economically. Thrifty Fun includes forums for coupon exchange, seed exchange, and sharing tips. I clicked through it and found several good ideas like this one for re-using/recycling glass jars.